696 APPENDIX. 



Some of the nightingale fanciers alfo prefer a 

 Surry bird to thofe of Middle/ex *. 



Thefe differences in the fons; of birds of the fame 

 fpecies cannot perhaps be compared to any thing 

 more appoiite, than the varieties of provincial 

 dialects. 



The nightingale feems to have been fixed upon, 

 almoft univerfally, as the mod capital of finging 

 birds, which fuperiority it certainly may boldly 

 challenge : one reafon, however, of this bird's be- 

 ing more attended to than others is, that it fings in 

 the night f. 



* Mr. Benjka^jj informs us, that nightingales in Denmark 

 ^re not heard till May, and that their notes are not (o fweet 

 or various as with us. Dr. Birch's Hiftory of the Royal So r 

 piety, Vol. III. p. 189. Whilft Mr. Fletcher (who was mini- 

 ster from Q^ Elizabeth to RuJJia) fays, that the nightingales in 

 that part of the world have a finer note than ours. See 

 Fletcher's Life, in the Biographia Britannica. 



I never could belie/e what is commonly afTerted, that the 

 Czar Peter was at a confiderable expence to introduce finging 

 birds near Peterjburgh ; becaufe it appears, by the Fauna 

 Suecica, that they have in thofe latitudes molt of the fame 

 birds with thofe of England. 



f The woodlark and reedfparrow fing likewife in the 

 night; and from hence, * in the neighbourhood of Shrcwf- 

 bury, the latter hath obtained the name of the willow-nigh- 

 tingale. Nightingales, however, and thefe two other birds 2 

 fing alfo in the day, but are not then diiHnguiffred in the ge- 

 neral concert. 



The 



